I wonder if any of you have reached a place in your lives in which you feel little at all could toss you out of perspective?  At least barring the deterioration of your mind?

It is a silly question, perhaps.  Who among us doesn’t feel as frail in perspective, some days, as we feel strong in spirit on others?

I am thinking of what Nicky wrote about relying on her spiritual toolbox, and how the practice of prayer can coat our lives with resources beyond ourselves–sort of like the ice is right now coating up to an inch thick all the branches and utility lines outside.  Sometimes I too have felt carried by prayer. Continue Reading

By Nicky Gant

I am one of the newest members of this Oblate community and am probably one of the youngest. I joined because I was looking for a community to support my spiritual growth and to surround myself with people who are further on the road then I am. I need guidance and a supportive place to express the part of myself that is seeking closer connection to God, trying to listen for His will in my life. For the same reason, I told Sue I’d contribute to the Oblate blog every few weeks.

In between the time I told her that and now, I received the news that my son Dylan, who is due to be born on 1/11/09 has a condition called duodenal atresia, which is a blockage in his stomach that will require surgery shortly after birth, along with 6-8 weeks recovery in the NICU. His ultrasounds also show ecogenic kidneys, which have a 50% chance of being nothing or could be some kind of kidney disease. He also has increased risks of other birth defects and Downs Syndrome. Continue Reading

Whether or not there are more than three dimensions–like the sixth dimension I read about recently, hypothesized to be tightly wrapped up and invisible to our senses, but right here with us always–what we can know for certain is that by the time we are ripe into adulthood, we have patterns of perceiving our lives and the world that are very hard to shake–patterns that can obscure life-giving truths for us.

How often have you sensed that most of us recognize wisdom when we see it, but are far still from letting the truth of that wisdom convert us deeply–alter our patterns of perception and action? Continue Reading

Is it possible that each of the days of the week has its own singular character, independent of our subjective experience of those days? I first noticed that Saturdays seemed to almost always have a consistent quality, something in the way the light falls, the way the air feels and smells, the appearance of the sky… Continue Reading

Perhaps this happens to you, too.  You are going about whatever you are going about doing, when suddenly the image of a very particular person, place, or moment pops into your mind.  The person, place, or moment may or may not be of deep emotional significance to you–and the image of the person or place might vanish rapidly, unless you pause and attend to it. Continue Reading

I’ve been wistfully imagining the symbolic knocking on the monastery door which Jackie Walsh did on September 6th. Once she was allowed into the monastery she started the period called postulancy in view of becoming a Benedictine from Rock Island. I’m so moved that it all started with a ritual of welcoming her in with its strong symbol of a huge, heavy door which opens onto a community of sisters gathered to take her into the chapel. Continue Reading